VETERINARY
ASSOCIATES STONEFIELDThursday, March 04, 2004
March 2, 2004
RANTING AND RAVING ABOUT THE SALE OF UNWEANED BABY BIRDS!!!
Yes, this is still happening. For those of you who would like the opinion of the Association of Avian Veterinarians please go to their website, at www.aav.org.
Personally I think this should be a felony offense! Handfeeding a baby bird is old hat to breeders and many of them think that anyone should be able to learn all the things that can go wrong in say 5- 10 minutes of instruction. NOT breeders beware, any self respecting avian veterinarian is going to speak badly of you if you continue to sell unweaned babies.
What prompted my rant today? A sweet precious African Grey baby who presented for swallowing the tip off of the syringe the new uneducated owner was feeding with! First, why do people use these tips? It is so unnecessary and useless to use them. They more often than no get pulled off, and the baby swallows them in the hands of the unsuspecting first time bird owner. This poor lady was beating herself up so bad, because she thought it was all her fault, it was not her fault, and it is the fault of the jerk who sold her this bird unearned!
Unweaned babies are subject to a myriad of problems. Aspiration from sucking some food down the windpipe. Yeast and bacterial infections from improper disinfection. Starvation because folks are not feeding enough. Obesity, especially in baby cockatoos because they are over fed. One of the most incredulous things is that most of these breeder’s do not even tell people to buy a scale and monitor the baby’s weight!!
The good news is a little high tech endoscopy, a grasping forcep and a great team in my hospital and we had the foreign body out of the gizzard in no time. Little guy is awake, walking around and eating all ready. But all this could have been avoided just by waiting until the bird was weaned. Wish I had the breeder’s name, I would publish it here, so that you do not go there and get the same disaster waiting to happen sold to you!
Ranting Sammy!
RANTING AND RAVING ABOUT THE SALE OF UNWEANED BABY BIRDS!!!
Yes, this is still happening. For those of you who would like the opinion of the Association of Avian Veterinarians please go to their website, at www.aav.org.
Personally I think this should be a felony offense! Handfeeding a baby bird is old hat to breeders and many of them think that anyone should be able to learn all the things that can go wrong in say 5- 10 minutes of instruction. NOT breeders beware, any self respecting avian veterinarian is going to speak badly of you if you continue to sell unweaned babies.
What prompted my rant today? A sweet precious African Grey baby who presented for swallowing the tip off of the syringe the new uneducated owner was feeding with! First, why do people use these tips? It is so unnecessary and useless to use them. They more often than no get pulled off, and the baby swallows them in the hands of the unsuspecting first time bird owner. This poor lady was beating herself up so bad, because she thought it was all her fault, it was not her fault, and it is the fault of the jerk who sold her this bird unearned!
Unweaned babies are subject to a myriad of problems. Aspiration from sucking some food down the windpipe. Yeast and bacterial infections from improper disinfection. Starvation because folks are not feeding enough. Obesity, especially in baby cockatoos because they are over fed. One of the most incredulous things is that most of these breeder’s do not even tell people to buy a scale and monitor the baby’s weight!!
The good news is a little high tech endoscopy, a grasping forcep and a great team in my hospital and we had the foreign body out of the gizzard in no time. Little guy is awake, walking around and eating all ready. But all this could have been avoided just by waiting until the bird was weaned. Wish I had the breeder’s name, I would publish it here, so that you do not go there and get the same disaster waiting to happen sold to you!
Ranting Sammy!
